Database systems typically function as database servers to store and retrieve data as requested by client applications. Commercial database systems, such as the SAP HANA® database, are required to handle increasingly more complex and diverse data, including database objects, used by larger numbers of client applications. In addition, many database systems function as in-memory computing platforms that perform complex analytics on the data stored or exchanged with its client applications.
In database systems, metadata is generally used to describe various forms of data that are handled by the database systems. Metadata typically refers to data that provides information about other data. In the case of database systems, metadata includes information about database objects used by its client applications or its internal calculation engine that performs complex analytics on the database objects. Metadata can be broadly characterized as structural metadata, descriptive metadata, and administrative metadata.
There is a need for systems and methods that simplify implementing solutions for database systems and their client applications that deal with large numbers and types of metadata and database objects. In addition, there is a need for systems and methods that allows for efficiently communicating metadata or data between multiple database systems in a platform-independent manner.